Happy Birthday, Satoshi Tajiri

Zhya: .

Zhya:
Happy 47th Birthday to Satoshi Tajiri, creator of Pokemon.


Tajiri was born on August 28, 1965 in Tokyo to a Nissan car salesman and a housewife. Tajiri grew up in Machida, Tokyo, which at the time still maintained a rural atmosphere. As a child, Tajiri enjoyed insect collecting as a hobby; this childhood activity would prove an inspiration for his later video game work. In fact, other children called him "Dr. Bug", and he wanted to have a profession as an entomologist. As the urban areas of Japan spread and more was paved over, many of the places for hunting bugs were lost. Tajiri wanted his games to allow children to have the feeling of catching and collecting creatures as he had.

Tajiri became fascinated with arcade games as a teenager, though his parents thought him a delinquent for it. He particularly enjoyed playing Taito's Space Invaders, which drew him into other video games. His interest eventually evolved into attempting to plan his own games. He took his Famicom apart to see how it worked, and ended up winning a contest for a video game idea sponsored by Sega.

Because of his fascination with video games, Tajiri frequently cut classes; as a result, he nearly did not graduate. His father attempted to get him a job at The Tokyo Electric Power Company, but Tajiri refused the job and managed to take make-up classes for his high school diploma. Tajiri did not attend college, but instead went to two-year technical school at Tokyo National College of Technology, where he studied electronics. He has Asperger syndrome.

Tajiri first conceived the idea of Pokémon in 1990. After he saw a Game Boy, the idea came together, and he decided it made the most sense on the handheld console. Tajiri pioneered the idea of connectivity between handheld game consoles, by suggesting that Game Boys could use its link cables in order to have friends do more than simply play against each other. This ability to communicate between consoles drew Tajiri to the Game Boy as a system.

Once the games were finished, very few media outlets gave it attention, believing the Game Boy was a dead console; a general lack of interest of merchandising convinced Tajiri that Nintendo would reject the games. The Pokémon games were not expected to do well, but sales steadily increased until the series found itself among Nintendo's top franchises. Rumors of a hidden Pokémon, Mew, which could only be obtained by exploiting programming errors, increased interest in the game. Tajiri had included Mew in the game in order to promote trading and interaction between players, but Nintendo was not aware of the creature upon release.

The franchise helped revive Nintendo, whose sales had been waning. Tajiri deliberately toned down violence in his games. In this vein, he had Pokémon faint rather than die after defeat, as he believed it was unhealthy for children to equate the concept of death with losing a game. On the most recent incarnations he supervised the process from start to finish and approved all the text. While developing games, Tajiri works irregular hours, often laboring 24 hours at a time.

Tajiri cites Shigeru Miyamoto as a major influence, thinking of him as a sort of mentor. For this reason, his developmental style closely matches that of Miyamoto. In the Pokémon anime, the main character is named Satoshi, while his rival is Shigeru. Tajiri claims that Western audiences understand his work better; instead of focusing exclusively on prominent characters like Pikachu, he believes they understand that the games are about partnership and identification with one's team.

Tajiri drew much of his inspiration from old Japanese shows and anime, including Godzilla and Ultraman. He has stated that if he did not design video games, he would most likely be in the anime field.



::: Trivia :::

~Tajiri was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, with Nintendo officials describing him as very creative, yet "reclusive" and "eccentric", two common symptoms of AS. Tajiri has confirmed this diagnosis but has not talked about it publicly.

~Tajiri's favorite Pokémon is apparently Poliwhirl, and says that the swirl on his belly is meant to be its intestines, representing the fact that a tadpole's internal organs are able to be seen when it is picked up and inspected.

~In an interview with Time Magazine in 1999, Tajiri stated that he sleeps for 12 hours, and then works on his games for 24 hours straight. He says that the irregular schedule helps him think of new ideas for games.

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_Tajiri

Source: http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Satoshi_Tajiri

::: Pictures :::

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